New Books in Intellectual Historyhttp://newbooksnetwork.com/category/politics-society/intellectual-history/
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3232Interviews with Scholars of Intellectual History about their New BooksMarshall PoecleanMarshall Poemarshallpoe@gmail.commarshallpoe@gmail.com (Marshall Poe)Interview with Scholars of Intellectual History about their New BooksNew Books in Intellectual Historyhttp://newbooksnetwork.com/wp-content/nbn_logos_itunes/intellectualhistory1500x1500.pnghttp://newbooksnetwork.com/category/politics-society/intellectual-history/
107000817Lena Salaymeh, “Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions” (Cambridge UP, 2016)http://newbooksnetwork.com/lena-salaymeh-beginnings-of-islamic-law-late-antique-islamicate-legal-traditions-cambridge-up-2016/
Fri, 02 Dec 2016 21:09:44 +0000http://newbooksnetwork.com/?p=61599Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Lena Salaymeh, Associate Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University, presents a fascinating account of the historical unfolding of Islamic Law…]]>In her brilliant new book Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Lena Salaymeh, Associate Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University, presents a fascinating account of the historical unfoldi...Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Lena Salaymeh, Associate Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University, presents a fascinating account of the historical unfolding of Islamic Law that combines dazzling textual analysis with cutting-edge theoretical interventions. Beginnings of Islamic Law makes a formidable and eminently convincing case for a carefully historicized approach to the study of Islamic law while arguing for the intimate entanglement of law and history. Another hallmark of this book is its focus putting Islamic Legal traditions in conversation with Jewish Law in singularly productive ways. Through a historically grounded and theoretically sophisticated comparison of Islamic and Jewish Law on specific questions of ethics and practice such as women initiated divorce, treatment of prisoners of war, and circumcision, this book highlights important and often surprising points of overlap and divergence. In our conversation we talked about the major themes, arguments, and possible misinterpretations of the book. Beginnings of Islamic Law will be of great interest to all students of Islam, Islamic Law, Jewish Law, Legal Studies, and the study of Religion more broadly. It should also make an excellent text for courses on these subjects.

SherAli Tareen is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His academic publications are available at https://fandm.academia.edu/SheraliTareen/. He can be reached at stareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome.
To download this interview file directly, right click here and select “Save Link (or ‘Target’) As…”]]>Marshall Poeclean20:4761599William H. Shaw, “Utilitarianism and the Ethics of War” (Routledge, 2016)http://newbooksnetwork.com/william-h-shaw-utilitarianism-and-the-ethics-of-war-routledge-2016/
Thu, 01 Dec 2016 11:00:24 +0000http://newbooksnetwork.com/?p=61333On any mature view, war is horrific. Naturally, there is a broad range of fundamental ethical questions regarding war. According to most moral theories, war is nonetheless sometimes permitted, and perhaps even obligatory.
In Utilitarianism and the Ethics of War (Routledge, 2016) William H. Shaw of San Jose State University provides a much needed utilitarian analysis of the ethics of war. Shaw proposes a fundamental utilitarian principle regarding the moral rightness of waging war, and then argues on utilitarian grounds for a compelling conception of the morality, duties, and responsibilities that apply to those fighting a war.]]>Marshall Poeclean1:02:4061333Jeremy Adelman, “Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman” (Princeton UP, 2013)http://newbooksnetwork.com/jeremy-adelman-wordly-philosopher-the-odyssey-of-albert-o-hirschman-princeton-up-2013/
Tue, 29 Nov 2016 21:29:25 +0000http://newbooksnetwork.com/?p=61565Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman (Princeton University Press, 2013) Jeremy Adelman describes the course of a restless thinker whose…]]>Although defined throughout his professional career as a development economist, Albert O. Hirschman’s intellectual scope defied classification. In Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman (Princeton University Press,Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman (Princeton University Press, 2013) Jeremy Adelman describes the course of a restless thinker whose life intersected with some of the most important events and developments of the twentieth century. Born to a family of assimilated Jews, Hirschman grew up in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Weimar Germany in the 1920s. After the Nazi regime came to power Hirschman began an itinerant existence, gaining an education in economics from universities in three different countries. A passionate anti-fascist, he fought for the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War and France in the Second World War. With the fall of France in 1940 he helped many of Europe’s leading artists and intellectuals escape from Nazi rule before emigrating to the United States himself. After wartime service in the OSS, Hirschman worked in the U.S. government on the postwar reconstruction of the European economy before moving to Colombia to serve as an advisor to the government there. His experiences in Latin America proved key to his emergence as a pioneer in the new field of development economics, which led to a succession of prestigious academic appointments. Yet as Adelman shows his readers, Hirschman’s interests were never confined to any one discipline, and his wide-ranging investigations led to works which often transcended disciplinary boundaries in the process of contributing to the intellectual discourse.
To download this interview file directly, right click here and select “Save Link (or ‘Target’) As…”]]>Marshall Poeclean1:06:0961565Robert Brain, “The Pulse of Modernism: Physiological Aesthetics in Fin-de-Siecle Europe (U. of Washington Press, 2015)http://newbooksnetwork.com/robert-brain-the-pulse-of-modernism-physiological-aesthetics-in-fin-de-siecle-europe-u-of-washington-press-2015/
Sat, 12 Nov 2016 16:07:42 +0000http://newbooksnetwork.com/?p=61247Robert …]]>“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life,” Oscar Wilde famously observed. Wilde’s waning romanticism can be read in stark contrast with Nietzsche, who argued around the same time, “art is nothing but a kind of applied physiology.Robert Brain’s The Pulse of Modernism: Physiological Aesthetics in Fin-de-Siecle Europe (University of Washington Press, 2015) unveils a fascinating world of exchange between artistic studios and physiology laboratories concealed by such pithy aphorisms. Brain argues that the influence and stature of physiological aesthetics have been overlooked in accounts of modernism in science and art, and seeks to recover experimental systems that were incredibly influential and fertile in their cultural situation.
Brain first sets himself to chart the development of physiological recording in the sciences, first as experimental technique, then as ontology, in a fascinating chapter on the protoplasm theory of life and on to its application to the human qua human problems of linguistic analysis. He then describes the experimentalization of visual art (Georges Seurat, Edvard Munch) and poetry (Gustave Kahn, F. T. Marinetti). The influence of Charles Henry, who inhabited both artists’ circles and physiology laboratories in his work as a preparateur, becomes a key pivot in Brain’s narrative through his creation a scientific aesthetic that could be deployed as a kind of productive black-box. The Pulse of Modernism is a rich portrait of fin-de-siecle material and intellectual culture, and challenges the pride of place given to Victorian sensibilities in the fashioning of the late modern (early modernist) scientific subject.
To download this interview file directly, right click here and select “Save Link (or ‘Target’) As…”]]>Marshall Poeclean1:04:5661247A. John Simmons, “Boundaries of Authority” (Oxford UP, 2016)http://newbooksnetwork.com/a-john-simmons-boundaries-of-authority-oxford-up-2016/
Tue, 01 Nov 2016 16:41:42 +0000http://newbooksnetwork.com/?p=61127Political states claim the moral right to rule the persons living within their jurisdiction; they claim the authority to make and enforce laws, establish policies, and allocate benefits and burdens of various kinds.
In Boundaries of Authority (Oxford University Press, 2016) A. John Simmons (University of Virginia) argues that leading accounts of state authority are insufficient to address successfully the distinctive questions regarding state boundaries. Building on his own Lockean individualist account of authority, Simmons develops a philosophical conception of how the moral rights claimed by states could be justified.

]]>Marshall Poeclean56:0761127Andrew Cole, “The Birth of Theory” (U. of Chicago Press, 2014)http://newbooksnetwork.com/andrew-cole-the-birth-of-theory-u-of-chicago-press-2014/
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 17:15:46 +0000http://newbooksnetwork.com/?p=61004The Birth of Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2014), Andrew Cole puts forward a reexamination of Hegelian dialectics that embeds Hegel in a long tradition of medieval dialectical thinking and suggests that it is…]]>Was Hegel a medieval thinker? In The Birth of Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2014), Andrew Cole puts forward a reexamination of Hegelian dialectics that embeds Hegel in a long tradition of medieval dialectical thinking and suggests that it is…
In The Birth of Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2014), Andrew Cole puts forward a reexamination of Hegelian dialectics that embeds Hegel in a long tradition of medieval dialectical thinking and suggests that it is precisely Hegel’s engagement with medieval modes of thought that make his work a productive source for Marx and the later thinkers who develop dialectical thinking into theory as we know it today. The Birth of Theory challenges readers with insights won from strenuous contests with the writing of history, philosophy, religion, literature, and political economy. As he makes the case for rereading Hegelian dialectics based on the essentially feudal social and economic organization of Germany in Hegel’s moment, Cole drives at the arbitrary distinctions between medieval and modern but also those between dialectical and anti-dialectical thinking, writing a long arc of intellectual history that renegotiates theory’s relationship to Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Deleuze and many others in between (xviii).
Along the way, the argument asks readers to dispense with a host of critical cliches as it winds deftly between close readings of Pseudo-Dionysius and Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy to comparative readings of Hegel on the Eucharist and Marx on the commodity, closing with focused and revelatory attention on the legacy established by Hegel in using medieval genres in response to the modern condition.

Carl Nellis is an academic editor and writing instructor working north of Boston, where he researches contemporary American community formation around appropriations of medieval European culture. You can learn more about Carls work at carlnellis.wordpress.com.
To download this interview file directly, right click here and select “Save Link (or ‘Target’) As…”]]>Marshall Poeclean1:01:4761004James Kloppenberg, “Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought” (Oxford UP, 2016)http://newbooksnetwork.com/james-kloppenberg-toward-democracy-the-struggle-for-self-rule-in-european-and-american-thought-oxford-up-2016/
Fri, 21 Oct 2016 18:29:52 +0000http://newbooksnetwork.com/?p=60929 James Kloppenberg is the Charles Warren Professor of American history at Harvard University. Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought (Oxford University Press, 2016) offers a detailed and sweeping intellectual history of the ideas that are…]]>James Kloppenberg is the Charles Warren Professor of American history at Harvard University. Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought (Oxford University Press, 2016) offers a detailed and sweeping intellectual histo... James Kloppenberg is the Charles Warren Professor of American history at Harvard University. Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought (Oxford University Press, 2016) offers a detailed and sweeping intellectual history of the ideas that are at the heart of the democratic process. Kloppenberg traces the features of democracy beginning with ancient Athens and Rome to revolutionary America and Europe to the challenge of the American Civil War. He examines the conflict fraught process of applying the principles of deliberation, pluralism, and reciprocity in establishing a form of government in which popular sovereignty, autonomy and equality would be realized. Drawing from the works of multitude religious and Enlightenment thinkers and placing ideas within cultural and often violent political upheaval, Kloppenberg challenges us to reflect on the unfulfilled promise of American democracy.

Lilian Calles Barger, www.lilianbarger.com, is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her current book project is entitled The World Come of Age: Religion, Intellectuals and the Challenge of Human Liberation.
To download this interview file directly, right click here and select “Save Link (or ‘Target’) As…”]]>Marshall Poeclean1:06:1760929Caroline Winterer, “American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason” (Yale UP, 2016)http://newbooksnetwork.com/caroline-winterer-american-enlightenments-pursuing-happiness-in-the-age-of-reason-yale-up-2016/
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 21:10:10 +0000http://newbooksnetwork.com/?p=60896Caroline Winterer is the Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University. American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason (Yale University Press, 2016) gives us a glimpse into how eighteenth-century Americans, as the “first prophets…]]>Caroline Winterer is the Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University. American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason (Yale University Press, 2016) gives us a glimpse into how eighteenth-century Americans...Caroline Winterer is the Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University. American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason (Yale University Press, 2016) gives us a glimpse into how eighteenth-century Americans, as the “first prophets of tomorrow,” thought of enlightenment, what it meant and how to achieve it. For centuries, enlightenment had a religious meaning of the soul awakening to divine light; increasingly it meant using reason and empirical evidence as guides and exchanging tradition and divine revelation for a humanistic and historical view of the world. The aim was nothing short of the pursuit of happiness. Winterer challenges mid-twentieth-century Cold War conceptualization of an American Enlightenment, as largely an appropriation of European ideas. The language of enlightenment was ubiquitous among educated Americans and applied to a broad range of endeavors. She demonstrates how the encounter with Indians, the expansion of slavery, the application of political economy, and the emergence of natural religion allowed Americans to contribute to a transatlantic conversation. By placing American thinkers within a transnational and a fresh hemispheric context and by adding local particularity Winterer allows us to see the diversity of American Enlightenments.

Lilian Calles Barger, www.lilianbarger.com, is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her current book project is entitled The World Come of Age: Religion, Intellectuals and the Challenge of Human Liberation.
To download this interview file directly, right click here and select “Save Link (or ‘Target’) As…”]]>Marshall Poeclean59:4460896Arie L. Molendijk, “Friedrich Max Muller and the Sacred Books of the East” (Oxford UP, 2016)http://newbooksnetwork.com/arie-l-molendijk-friedrich-max-muller-and-the-sacred-books-of-the-east-oxford-up-2016/
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 21:04:27 +0000http://newbooksnetwork.com/?p=60894Arie L. Molendijk is Professor of the History of Christianity and Philosophy in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He has written Friedrich Max Muller and the Sacred Books of the East …]]>Arie L. Molendijk is Professor of the History of Christianity and Philosophy in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He has written Friedrich Max Muller and the Sacred Books of the East …Arie L. Molendijk is Professor of the History of Christianity and Philosophy in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He has written Friedrich Max Muller and the Sacred Books of the East (Oxford University Press, 2016) to study how this seminal series of translations had started a novel way of understanding religions through a comparative study of texts and how it led to the shaping of the Western understanding of Eastern faith-traditions. Molendijk critically analyzes this rise of “big science” and also discusses the problems inherent in this approach of “textualisation of religion.” He revisits the limitations of translation and questions the assumptions behind them. He also looks into the person of Max Muller, specifically his scholarly aspect.
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Sat, 15 Oct 2016 10:00:49 +0000http://newbooksnetwork.com/?p=60818The social practice we call science has had spectacular success in explaining the natural world since the 17th century. While advanced mathematics and other precursors of modern science were not unique to Europe, it was there that Isaac Newton, Robert…Wondrous Truths: The Improbable Triumph of Modern Science (Oxford University Press, 2016), J.D. Trout mounts a spirited defense of the claim that the best explanation of the rise of science in 17th Century Europe is that Newton and others got lucky; among other serendipitous factors, they happened to come up with versions of preexisting ideas that were just right enough to explain just enough of the world, and that was enough to get the ball rolling.
Trout, who is Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Loyola University in Chicago, defends the scientific realist view that scientific theories are successful because they are by and large true, not just predictively accurate. He also sharply distinguishes the psychology of explanation–the Aha! feeling of understanding–from the truth of an explanation. On his ontic view of explanation, we can experience being satisfied with bad (false) explanations, and there are true theories we may never understand.
To download this interview file directly, right click here and select “Save Link (or ‘Target’) As…”]]>Marshall Poeclean1:07:3060818